3 ms·

I'm not completely clear i understand the distinction. With basic income, you just get cash (or a tax deduction if you're making money - the original proposal w

• tomjen3 12y ago
  It is true that the market is efficient in getting people what they want and that the government is not. However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can. If you lived in a government room, got your government clothing and ate in your government chow hall/mess tent/whatever then you could get a benefit out of shoveling dogshit for 10usd/hour since you could get a better shirt, a more tasty meal, etc. You can't sell access to a government bed because every person would be entitled to one, you can't sell access to government food if any person could show up and you could sell your government shit, but to whom? That person would also be able to get 5 shirts. With government money you would have to check that that person wasn't working under the table, you would have to provide incentives to work (since it is better for society), etc. When we truely have human level AI we can make the Culture and nobody has to work. And it will be an epic achievement, but in the transition period we still have to use the carrot and stick.
  • jfoutz 12y ago
    Which is the point of the deduction. Any work at all is better than sitting around doing nothing. - I'd suggest you check out Friedman's original position. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM It's elegant.
  • dragonwriter 12y ago
    > However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can. The incentive to take whatever job you can is that even if a job pays very little, that's on top of the basic income. > With government money you would have to check that that person wasn't working under the table No, the whole point of basic income (vs. traditional means-tested welfare) is that you don't have to do that, and that its counterproductive to do it anyway. All you have to check is "are you a citizen [1]". If you are, you get the benefit. Working under the table is a tax problem, but its a problem that you already have to address for the tax system, not separately for the benefit system since its not relevant to benefit calculations in a BI system. > When we truely have human level AI we can make the Culture and nobody has to work. With BI at the level that can be maintained without utopian level productivity of that type, people will both need to work and be incentivized to do so; there's no need for an explicit stick, relative deprivation is itself a motivator (sure, not everyone will work, and progressively fewer will work as productivity increases through technology and sustainable BI levels increase. But not everyone needs to work, and BI lets market forces drive that.) [1] or "citizen or legal immigrant" or whatever the status-based qualification is. Income, etc., isn't part of it.
    • grinnbearit 12y ago
      > The incentive to take whatever job you can is that even if a job pays very little, that's on top of the basic income. The goal isn't to provide largess (is it?) its to provide the basics with no strings attached free of charge, anything beyond that should require satisfying the desires of other humans. > "citizen or legal immigrant" I understand the reason this check is necessary, I also think you're going to end up with a lot of dead illegals. This is a moral problem we're trying to solve right? Why should specific people starve?
      • dragonwriter 12y ago
        > The goal isn't to provide largess (is it?) its to provide the basics with no strings attached free of charge, anything beyond that should require satisfying the desires of other humans. The goal, in my view, of Basic Income is to mitigate the fundamental structural inequity of capitalist markets (particularly in the way that money/commodity exchanges work as a proxy for value/utility), to wit, that such markets weight present utility experienced by market participants by past wealth accumulation, and thus are progressively distortive in terms of distribution of utility. Providing a basic, no-strings-attached allowance is a means, not an ends. > anything beyond that should require satisfying the desires of other humans. As it does in BI -- you have to gain income from market exchange to realize utility beyond that attainable with the BI alone. The difference between BI and your "basic welfare" where the government provides a standard-issue basket of goods and services is that BI is simply additive with other income, whereas the limited exchangeability and substitutability of the standard basket of basic welfare goods and services means that it takes a large additional income to get a small additional benefit, which reduces the incentive to provide additional value since, over some range at the bottom. > I understand the reason this check is necessary, I also think you're going to end up with a lot of dead illegals. BI serving its purpose does not preclude other programs serving people present in the jurisdiction of the nation that aren't subject to it. Nor does the example of potential classifications mean that BI couldn't have a different eligibility rule ("everyone physically present in the national jurisdiction" is also a possible rule.) > This is a moral problem we're trying to solve right? There are many moral problems. Not all of them have the same solution. > Why should specific people starve? I don't recall arguing that anyone should starve.